Should Kids Play Violent Role Playing Games?

For many students, they grew up playing violent video games, but St. Ann’s high school in New York City takes it to the next level. The students participate in the last-man-standing game of water pistol-ambush, Killer, where the students spend a brutal two and a half weeks stalking and “killing” each other, all while school is still in session. This game is perilous to the students as they feel unsafe in their own communities, promotes violence, and has a negative effect on the student’s grades. The game Killer causes the students to feel unsafe in their own homes, to the point where they cannot leave through the front door of their own home to go to school. According to the article “High-Jinks: Shoot-Out,” it states, “He woke up and, as usual, hopped a neighbor's fence and exited through a neighbor’s house.”

At St. Ann's private high school in Brooklyn Heights and in other schools around the country it is end-of-year tradition to play a game of “killer” school wide. The game includes “shooting” and “killing” your “prey” (other players) while trying to protect yourself. While some may state the game is motivating and entertaining for the high schoolers, it is argued that this game is being taken too far, consuming the kids and encouraging bad decisions.

Games with simulated violence are perilous for teens, because the teens participating are going through other people’s personal information, attacking people in public, and, more generally, are more violent when they are older.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association that a 2005 law restricting the sale of violent video games to those under the age of 18 was unconstitutional. The court ruled that the law was not backed by scientific evidence and therefore goes against the first amendment, which requires proof of harm in order to violate. The case came about after a group of politicians expressed concern about the effects violent video games had upon children. Prosecutor Stefen F. Gruel fought in favor of the ban, citing studies and research which displayed a correlation between violent video games and violence in children. Whereas defense attorney Patricia A. Millett argued that the research was not thorough enough and that there is substantial evidence that negates the research Gruel’s used to argue his case. With the ever-increasing video game industry, it is important to fully understand the impacts such technology is having on children positive and negative. I believe that the evidence does not support a correlation between violence in video games and violence in children, though it does support the causation of other possible negative effects. I also do not think the government establishing a ban on violent video games for minors would greatly reduce the number of children playing them due to the culture of violence in the United States.

Many people believe that violent video games play a big role in the violence we see in schools today. Gaming plays a large role in children’s lives and have begun to

As a parent, you try to shield your child from the real world for as long as possible, but for the students of several New York high schools, they’ve already experienced extreme role-play where “killing” is just an annual thing. Every year, many schools in New York participate in a game called Killer, where guns are replaced with water pistols, and the winning team gets the jackpot. Schools claim that it is a harmless, entertaining outlet for stress and also teaches teens life skills they will need later on. In the minds of others, the game could be doing the complete opposite. Although most undergraduates would find the competition entertaining, the game Killer, could possibly teaching them immoral behavior, as well as causing even more

It is agreeable that there are some correlation between teenagers playing video games and how it affects the youth mentally. Heavy consumption of violence video games does indeed stimulate a change reaction in the brain waves, but there is no hard evidence stating that those changes causes teenagers to act aggressively and violently. On the contrary, it is a popular beliefs that violence video games does indeed causes teenagers to displayed unpleasant behaviors and actions because that is what they learned and observed from the games. Therefore, parents should limit and regulate the amount of time their teenagers are playing violence video games so that they can protect their children from negative behaviors.

Did you know that according to Dr. Bret Conrad, the majority of gamers believe that video game violence has few, if any harmful effects on them personally? Well, many people today play games with simulated violence ranging from games like “Killer” to games like Grand Theft Auto. One example, “Killer”, takes place in multiple New York City high schools at the end of the year. It consists of two teams, each student is assigned a person to shoot and they have to shoot them before they are shot. The students have to use water pistols to shoot their person. Once they are killed, their game is over. While some agree that games with simulated violence are perilous for teens, games with simulated violence are beneficial for teens because they help kids with problem solving skills, keep them busy and helps them help others.

In California alone, 1,697,000 homicides were committed in one year. Playing intense killing games have affected the minds of players, especially children. In these games, lives are regenerated and children are handling and learning how to operate guns and knives within the game. This setup is treating the killing as a game. As a result, it is quite enjoyable to players. Not only are their aggressive video games, but there is also simulated assassination games played by high schools in New York. Similar to “The Hunger Games, Killer,” is a last-man-standing game of water pistol ambush. Students attending the school look forward to this simulated killing event every year. By allowing these kids to have fun by pretending to shoot each other with water guns, they are perceiving the idea that killing is entertaining. This is not only unacceptable, but very dangerous for the students and the whole

Kids with touchscreen phones and parents with tablets, technology is the future. A lot of kids and even adults play video games. Almost everyone in the world has some sort of video game or device that is used to play games. It's what new, what everyone wants and sometimes needs. So no matter what, you will see people playing video games and you can’t stop it. So why are video games good for you? Video games especially violent ones help vision and hand eye coordination. Crime rates in the U.S have gone down significantly since video games have gotten more and more popular. The U.S government cannot link violent behavior of people to the playing of violent video games.

Finally, role playing games with simulated violence are perilous because people may use actual violence. In the game, the students use water guns and act as if they’re in a shooting game. They also act as if arranging squads and kills is normal. “‘I’m looking for some good massacres early,’ this year’s judge said as the competition began, the second week in May. ‘I’ve arranged at least one boyfriend-girlfriend kill that could be interesting.’” If people play games like this often, they may turn to real guns or other forms of violence.

There is an argument going around about whether or not schools should allow students to role play games with simulated violence. I agree that they should not allow it.

Picture this, you are running through the woods with your friends, a small water gun glued to your hand. It is the best day ever. Except that you have a paper due tomorrow which you haven’t started, you are trespassing on someone’s property, and you tripped on a log a few minutes before and hurt your ankle. Teenagers are known for their rebellious and dangerous behavior. Although pulling stunts and playing games may be fun they also need to consider the dangers and outcomes of these actions. There is much controversy of whether or not violent role playing games are good or bad for people including teenagers. There are many people who believe that the positive effects it has on people outweigh the negative effects. However, there are also people that argue that the negative effects outweigh the positive effects. Although violent role playing games seem fun and harmless they aren’t and are very dangerous, have many illegal aspects to them, and keep people that are playing them unfocused on school or work.

“I like video games, but they’re really violent. I’d like to play a videogame where you help the people who were shot in all other games. It’d be called Really Busy Hospital.”-Demitri Martin. Role playing games have been a source of fun and entertainment for children and adults. There are more safe and calm games such as Just Dance, and there are more Perilous games such as Call of Duty. Role playing games such as killer are perilous for school age children putting them in danger, teaching violence, and teaching reckless behavior.

The story line behind some violent video games includes games in which players earn points by carjacking taxis, scoring drugs from cursing thugs, and mowing down pedestrians.(see http://www.feedmag.com/vgs/duncan.html>) Some cartoonish tag lines in some sadistic video games include : -- "As easy as killing babies with axes" and "More fun than killing your neighbour's cats". This kind of themes definitely influence the players, especially the younger ones, and inflict violent tendencies on them. It is no wonder, that this killing mania in violent games was seen to seep out into the actual world when a high school junior opened fire in his school cafetaria in Littleton, Colorado, killing two of his classmates. The gunman was reported to be an ardent fan of Quake and Doom, some rather violent video games. More proof of the relationship between video games and violence is revealed by a study which clearly reveals how this kind of entertainment affects our lives. Greater details of the history of how high school students turned gunmen in Columbine High School are given, which shows that the effect of video games in their lives was a major source of influence in doing what they did best.